BART Agrees to Pay Oscar Grant's Mother $1.3 Million

(Bay City News) - Oakland - BART officials said today that the agency has reached a $1.3 million settlement with the mother of Oscar Grant III, a Hayward man who was fatally shot by former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale station in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009.

BART spokesman Linton Johnson said BART reached the settlement with Wanda Johnson this afternoon and will have more details later today.

The settlement is the second that BART has reached in the matter, as last year it agreed to pay $1.5 million to Grant's young daughter, Tatiana Grant.

The agreements settle a $50 million wrongful death and civil rights lawsuit that Oakland attorney John Burris filed in federal court on behalf of Grant's family in 2009.

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Grant, 22, who was unarmed, was shot and killed by Mehserle after Mehserle and other officers responded to reports that there was a fight on a BART train.

Mehserle, who resigned a week after the incident, was charged with murder but he was convicted of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

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In a highly publicized trial that was moved to Los Angeles County because of concerns about whether he could get a fair trial in Alameda County, Mehserle admitted that he shot and killed Grant but said he had meant to use his Taser on Grant and fired his service gun by mistake.

Mehserle was released from custody on June 13 after serving about one year of a two-year term. He was released early because of credits he had accumulated.